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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23817034">His Heart was Now a Secret Garden</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanddall_asy/pseuds/sanddall_asy'>sanddall_asy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Requests and Prompts [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Smile For Me (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Princess Bride Fusion, Angst, F/F, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 15:41:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>776</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23817034</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanddall_asy/pseuds/sanddall_asy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you even still love me?”</p><p>Part of Never_Eat_Soggy_Wheat's <i>the Princess Bride</i> AU.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kamal Bora/Dr. Boris Habit, Lulia Fame/Jerafina Tabouli</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Requests and Prompts [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714711</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>His Heart was Now a Secret Garden</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Never_Eat_Sour_Wheat/gifts">Never_Eat_Sour_Wheat</a>.</li>


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23779150">The Hollowness Was in His Arms, and the World Was Smiling</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Never_Eat_Sour_Wheat/pseuds/Never_Eat_Sour_Wheat">Never_Eat_Sour_Wheat</a>.
        </li>

    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tending to the fields had long since become mindless work to Boris. He knew how to care for the plants that he and his mothers reared better than he knew how to care for himself, and that is what he appreciated about the work. When his nails were caked in soil or the calluses on his hands were being torn again, all thoughts left his brain. These past few weeks this work had been the only time that he felt no anxiety, no impatience, no foolish, foolish hope; as such, if he wasn’t in the town waiting alertly for any seed of news of Kamal, he was in their fields. </p><p>Jerafina had had to ask him to work a different section of land so as to not overwork their crops, and suggested the patches surrounding their home. “Flowers, perhaps,” Lulia had said when asked what he should plant there. Jerafina had simply said that anything would be fine.</p><p>On many of his and Kamal’s walks they had taken note of the flowers growing throughout the nearby forest. Flowers had always appealed to Boris, though he hadn’t had much of a desire to grow them before. He carefully uproots blue salvias he had found long ago near a large, flat rock where he and Kamal had rested at many times, and lavender from the near the remains of the fallen tree trunk, and aster from the edges of the boot-worn path. </p><p>He ignores the lilies spread throughout the forest’s grounds.</p><p>Replanting the flowers pulls him away from the memories drudged up of Kamal’s hand in his and his lips on Kamal. He buries them deep inside him.</p><p>It’s near-night by the time Lulia pulls him away from his task. His body is slow and clumsy from the rest he has denied himself, and his brain is starting to buzz lazily with thought again. He cleans the dirt from under his nails and in the creases of his hands with a calm discontent, the water waking his mind. Boris is quiet through the late dinner the three have, and his chest feels like it’s covered with windowpane frost as he softly shrugs away his mothers’ careful and concerned attempts to comfort him with a hand on his shoulder or a close hug. </p><p>When he lays in his bed sleep does not come to him. His tired body has not led to a tired mind, and his thoughts have finally drifted to some kind of clarity. It is unbearable.</p><p>He stands and leaves his bed quietly, and enters into the just-warm night. The sky is clouded, but the moonbeams that spill out in small splatters are enough to light the land surrounding him for a good distance. As he sits on a stool just outside the stable, he allows his traitorous mind to grab at those painful thoughts.</p><p>Boris sobs as he thinks about Kamal. No wedding would be worth the complete lack of communication that he has had with him. He should have begged Kamal to stay more than he had. Kamal should have never left. They were happy together. They were happy.</p><p>And with that, the floodgates opened. Boris wailed silently as he tumbled over thoughts and possibilities of what Kamal might be doing in America. The stories gossiped in town over card tables and in market corners spoke of prosperity and advantage; the vastness and variety of the land meant that Kamal could be doing so many things, seeing so many things that Boris could never conceive of. It would be likely that he would stay near where he docked to return with little hassle, so perhaps he was working as a longshoreman. Or maybe Kamal was traveling across the mountains and plains, working in one farm one week and a different one the next. What people had he met? Beautiful men with lovely voices? Handsome women with kind hearts? “Do you even still love me?”</p><p>Boris collapses in on himself at that. If he hadn’t felt his breath against the hand cupping his mouth, he wouldn’t have realised he had said anything. His body shakes, and he falls into the kind of crying that consumes the entirety of someone.</p><p>When the last of his tears fall and all he is left with is his haggard breathing, Boris composes himself. He stands with a deep breath and wipes his face with cold water before retiring to his bed, weary and numb. Tomorrow would come sooner now that he would be able to sleep, and in just a few days, the eleventh month since Kamal’s leave would be upon them. He would return home to Boris soon.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You can find me on tumblr at <a href="https://sanddall-asy.tumblr.com/">@sanddall-asy</a>, where I'm taking writing prompt requests.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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